MENIFEE: Team places 3rd in regional contest

Six Menifee Middle 6th-graders worked on project about ocean pollution

There's a whole lot of garbage in the Earth's oceans, and a
group of Menifee Valley Middle School students are sharing with
their classmates and others ways they have learned to help clean it
up.

Sixth-graders Elide Avila, Lianna Perez, Blake Moore, Ryan Sias,
Paige Jodoin and Garrett Hanna were all members of the middle
school's "QuikSCience" team this year. The Menifee team took third
place on April 7 in the annual QuikSCience Challenge competition.
There were 105 middle school teams from Southern California, Hawaii
and Guam that participated.

The QuikSCience Partnership is a collaboration between the USC
Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies, the Quiksilver
sportswear company and the Quiksilver Foundation. It holds separate
annual QuikSCience Challenge competitions for middle and high
school students with the goal of improving science education by
using children's love of the ocean to make science more
approachable.

The middle school competitors had to complete several projects
about ocean pollution, including a lesson plan.

Menifee Middle School's team created a PowerPoint presentation,
made a pop-up book, crafted an "ocean in a box" project, wrote a
song and a rap that Paige played along with on her saxophone, and
they devised a lesson plan that the team members shared with other
sixth- and eighth-graders at their school in January.

The students worked on the project between October and March on
their own time after school. Eighth-grade science teacher Cheryl
Frye served as their adviser.

For placing third, the Menifee team won a free, daylong trip to
Catalina Island to visit the Wrigley Marine Science Center. While
there, they'll get to kayak and go snorkeling, as well.

"I'm proud of them because it's extra work," Frye said, adding that
the project is very labor-intensive. "It's nice to see the kids
passionate about ocean pollution."

The Menifee students said they learned a lot about pollution,
recycling, the ocean ecosystem and how animals and humans are
affected by ocean pollution. They said they also learned a lot
about environmental science.

"The ocean-in-a box showed it all because that showed how dirty it
is," Paige said, referring to the model the students made with
water, sand, soap, oil and trash.

"I actually learned how much trash Americans throw away, and it's a
lot," she said.

"Most of it ends up in the ocean through storm drains," Ryan
added.

The teammates said they also learned ways they and others can help
alleviate the problem, which include participating in beach cleanup
days, recycling, using reusable bags and donating money to
organizations that work to clean the ocean and save marine
life.

The entries were judged by USC professors and graduate students, as
well as officials with the Quiksilver Foundation. The top five
teams also were interviewed in person at USC on March 14, and the
work of the top winners, including the Menifee students, was
displayed at the Quiksilver company headquarters in Huntington
Beach.